The Cay
Ratings1
Average rating4
15
Ratings1
Average rating4
Book Description:
Read Theodore Taylor’s classic bestseller and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner The Cay.
Phillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curaçao. War has always been a game to him, and he’s eager to glimpse it firsthand–until the freighter he and his mother are traveling to the United States on is torpedoed.
When Phillip comes to, he is on a small raft in the middle of the sea. Besides Stew Cat, his only companion is an old West Indian, Timothy. Phillip remembers his mother’s warning about black people: “They are different, and they live differently.”
But by the time the castaways arrive on a small island, Phillip’s head injury has made him blind and dependent on Timothy.
“Mr. Taylor has provided an exciting story…The idea that all humanity would benefit from this special form of color blindness permeates the whole book…The result is a story with a high ethical purpose but no sermon.”—New York Times Book Review
“A taut tightly compressed story of endurance and revelation…At once barbed and tender, tense and fragile—as Timothy would say, ‘outrageous good.’”—Kirkus Reviews
* “Fully realized setting…artful, unobtrusive use of dialect…the representation of a hauntingly deep love, the poignancy of which is rarely achieved in children’s literature.”—School Library Journal, Starred
“Starkly dramatic, believable and compelling.”—Saturday Review
“A tense and moving experience in reading.”—Publishers Weekly
“Eloquently underscores the intrinsic brotherhood of man.”—Booklist
"This is one of the best survival stories since Robinson Crusoe."—The Washington Star
· A New York Times Best Book of the Year
· A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
· A Horn Book Honor Book
· An American Library Association Notable Book
· A Publishers Weekly Children’s Book to Remember
· A Child Study Association’s Pick of Children’s Books of the Year
· Jane Addams Book Award
· Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
· Commonwealth Club of California: Literature Award
· Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People Award
· Woodward School Annual Book Award
· Friends of the Library Award, University of California at Irvine
Reviews with the most likes.
We listened to the entire book today as an audiobook from the Overdrive READS library system. I know it's one of those we read in fourth grade but in my mind it blends a bit with my experience of reading the Scott O'Dell dolphins book and Lord of the Flies et al. I was surprised by how much I was interested and actually enjoyed it.
The three year old and baby actually took a two plus hour nap while he five year old listened to almost all of it before she ran off to play. Yet then the rest if the afternoon was spent talked and acting on being on a raft, saving rain water for drinking, and surviving the hurricane.
While I know that racism is a big deal theme in the book, even as said by the author in the interview following the book, the main thing I took away is the survival. The will to live and truly live not just get by. He found things to do and eat but he found joy in things. That I think is an incredibly powerful message that I think kids need to read. Makes me think back to my first fav route book of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi and Jennifer Holm's Boston Jane series. Lots of ideas for when the kids are reading and enjoying this level on their own.
Add to Wayfarers Ancients shelf. WWII.
Featured Series
2 primary booksThe Cay is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 1969 with contributions by Theodore Taylor.
